C.B. Macdonald said (in his autobiography) he thought his NGLA.....

[TEPaul]

.....was the first example of golf course architecture.

Why do you think he said that and what do you think he really meant by that?

[Mac Plumart]

Of course, giving ones opinion on why other people said something or did something is pure speculation...but I will speculate...

I think he said it for two reason...

#1--to highlight the work, effort, and thought that went behind the process he used to create NGLA.  If this statement was heard by other golf enthusiasts, it could serve as a building block or motivational tool to inspire others to create more high quality golf courses.  Thereby lifting the overall quality and quantity of good/great golf courses in America.

#2--to bring attention to the quality of his work.

What did he mean by it?

I think he was highlighting the fact that previous great golf courses were built largely by mother nature.  Other courses which were built were not well thought out and, therefore, not great.  These courses were not worthy of being labeled as architecture and were therfore of lower class than NGLA.  Essentially, he meant that well thought out courses were works of educated and diligent men...architects.  Others were haphazard efforts and were not worthy of the respect that architecturally built courses were.

[JC Jones]

Similar to Mac, if architecture is defined as construction resulting from a conscious act then NGLA was the first example.  As opposed to "finding" the course on the land, NGLA was planned, designed and built on the land.

[Anthony Gray]

  First course that was manufactured?

  Anthony

[Scott Henderson]

Anthony,

Do you mean manufactured or unnatural? 

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
That is not exactly what he said. He said he did not think the term 'golf architecture' can be found in the records prior to 1901 when he developed the idea of copying or emulating certain aspects of famous holes. He goes on to compare golf architecture to art and architecture, and says his idea of emulating well known examples (which is common other creative disciplines and the formalized studies of other creative disciplines) was the birth of golf architecture. He equates the study of famous holes and features of holes with the birth of golf architecture as discipline on par with the other well established creative disciplines.

I would take exception with his timeline (among other things) because I know Willie Park borrowed heavily from Musselburgh when he designed Huntercombe.

[BCrosby]

Another example is Low's use of the PN concept at the 4th at Woking circa 1901.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Thanks. You're right, it certainly would be appropriate to quote exactly what he said on this subject in his autobiography:

"I was intensely interested, and it was from this discussion I was urged to carry out the idea of building a classical golf course in America, one which would eventually compare favorably with the championship links abroad and serve as an incentive to the elevation of the game in America. I believe this was the first effort at establishing golfing architecture----at least there is no record I can find preceding it."

[TEPaul]

"I would take exception with his timeline (among other things) because I know Willie Park borrowed heavily from Musselburgh when he designed Huntercombe."

Tom MacWood:

Very interesting. I didn't know Park Jr borrowed heavily from Musselburgh when he designed Huntercombe. Can you point us to something that suggests that either before or while Park was doing Huntercombe? Thanks.

Also, do you suppose CBM was unaware that Park Jr had emulated pre-existing GB holes at Huntercombe approximately 7-8 years before NGLA? If so how do you suppose he could have been unaware of that? Perhaps he didn't know that much about what was going on architecturally in GB in 1900 as he had just moved from Chicago to NYC. Do you know how many times CBM went abroad between 1892 and 1902?  

This might have something to do with why CBM said many years later he felt that NGLA was the first example of golfing architecture of which he was aware.
 

[Jim_Kennedy]

You can continue in trying to lay down some childish trap or you can understand that Macdonald was talking about his effort to create architecture in the USA when he made that remark, i.e., there was no 'there' here.

 

[TEPaul]

I do not view a discussion or analysis of why CBM said in his 1928 autobiography that he thought NGLA was the first example of golfing architecture when courses such as Huntercombe existed 7-8 years previous to NGLA as some childish trap but apparently that's the way you view it.

If one stops to consider that remark by CBM it is actually pretty damn startling when one considers the history and evolution of golf course architecture previous to NGLA.  

I'm interested as well in what Tom MacWood just said about his understanding of Park Jr at Huntercombe borrowing heavily from Musselburgh's architecture, including what he said about his feeling that CBM apparently got his timeline confused or wrong. The latter is pretty ironic considering you said earlier on another thread that the detractors of MacWood had something TO PROTECT!

Who is it that seems to have something to protect now? It seems to be you Jim Kennedy. Why is that?  


By the way, I see you can't exactly get your mind around the idea that CBM may've gotten the idea for a biarritz swale from the landform of Wilson and committee's 17th hole at Merion East on April 6, 1911 which preceded any biarritz hole Macdonald ever did. That does not surprise me in the slightest since you apparently have something you think you should protect. Again, may I ask you what it is you think you should protect? 

[TEPaul]

It seems you are suggesting that CBM was only referring to NGLA as the first example of golfing architecture in America. Well, that is certainly a reasonable suggestion to make about what he may've meant.

Even though that would certainly beg the question of Myopia and GCGC that even he mentioned were quality golf courses in America. Do you suppose despite that he felt they did not qualify as golfing architecture in America because they did not utilize template holes from abroad or their classical principles?

If so, I should point out that Myopia had a hole known as "The Alps" about 7-8 years before CBM did NGLA----and of course that is assuming Leeds knew there was an "Alps" hole abroad previous to his creation of Myopia's 10th hole in the late 1890s. But maybe Macdonald failed to notice that or just decided to not acknowledge it to promote himself and his NGLA.

Oh, sure, I'm quite sure you will categorize that last statement as just another example of bashing Macdonald again. I actually view it as another very important question to discuss in the history and evolution of American golf course architecture.

Eventually, the most important subject of all should also be discussed-----why did some of the more significant architects in America beginning in the teens decide to vocally, philosophically and actually move away from Macdonald's template or classical GB architecture model and philosophy and even begin to criticize the very idea of it?

If you think the very idea of that question is another example of bashing C.B. Macdonald, well then, I'm sorry about that----I don't think it is at all----again, I think it is one of the most important and fundamental questions in the early history and evolution of American golf course architecture, particularly considering who Macdonald was and the remarkable effect he had had on early American architecture!

[Jim_Kennedy]

In 1897 Macdonald wrote:
"The proper distance between the holes, the shrewd placing of bunkers and other hazards, the perfecting of putting greens, all must be evolved by a process of growth and it requires study and patience"
So, 12 or 13 years before his other remark, he understood what it meant to be an architect.

The paragraph, as posted, reads: 
"I was intensely interested, and it was from this discussion I was urged to carry out the idea of building a classical golf course in America, one which would eventually compare favorably with the championship links abroad and serve as an incentive to the elevation of the game in America. I believe this was the first effort at establishing golfing architecture----at least there is no record I can find preceding it."

He's talking about transplanting the architecture found abroad to courses in America. It's ridiculous, no it's ludicrous, to think that he didn't understand that those courses were built, not found. It's ludicrous to think he didn't know what was going on in the UK because that's where he went for his inspiration.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tom Paul,
You're a coward. You continually accuse me, wrongly, of having something to protect, but you have never said just what that is. Instead of skulking around like a jackal why don't you be a man, and reveal to everyone on this site just what you think I'm protecting. I'd like to know what is, because as it stands right now you look more like a delusional paranoid who's taking wild swipes at someone who simply disagrees with you.

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,
You're a coward."




I'm a coward?  

You think I'm a coward for wanting to discuss why C.B. Macdonald said in his autobiography that he thought his NGLA was the first example of golfing architecture??

I see. That's pretty interesting!  



"Instead of skulking around like a jackal why don't you be a man, and reveal to everyone on this site just what you think I'm protecting. I'd like to know what is, because as it stands right now you look more like a delusional paranoid who's taking wild swipes at someone who simply disagrees with you."



Wow, now I'm a jackal; now I'm not a man; now I'm a delusional paranoid! That's really interesting!  


No problem and definitely no skulking or delusional paranoia. I think what you seem to be PROTECTING is Charles Blair Macdonald or his image or his legend or something of that kind FROM a discussion on here about how he preceived or else promoted his architecture and how others in this country (and perhaps abroad as well) apparently took exception, certainly after a time, to what he was doing and the way he was going about it.

If you aren't trying to protect CBM from a discussion or analysis of something like that then why did you just call me a coward for this particular thread and my attempt to discuss its subject? And lastly, Jim Kennedy, my interest in you or in you disagreeing with me or in me disagreeing with you is pretty minimal, actually just about immeasurable; it is Charles Blair Macdonald, his architecture, his architectural style, his architectural model for America and how others of his contemporaries viewed it in different ways and at various times that I am primarily interested in and interested in discussing with others on here who are capable of discussing it and analyzing it.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Yes Tom, I think you're a coward. You still haven't given a reason why I would be 'protecting' C. B. Macdonald from any discussion of his legend.

Please, tell us. Am I writing a book about him? Nope, that's been done.  Does his estate send me money to watch over his image? No need, the whole 'golf' world respects him.  Could I be an illegitimate grandson? I'll show you my papers that prove otherwise.

You have no valid reason.

[Jim_Kennedy]

...by the way Tom, I'm leaving this thread as I see you are changing the nature of your posts as you go.

Another cowardly tactic.

[TEPaul]

"You still haven't given a reason why I would be 'protecting' C. B. Macdonald from any discussion of his legend."


I haven't? I thought I just did. Reread the last paragraph in my last post then. That is why I feel you're trying to protect Macdonald from any discussion of him, his architecture or his legend. If that is not what you're doing on here then why have you been telling me I'm bashing Charles Blair Macdonald every time I try to discuss him, his architecture, and the subject of what others of his contemporaries thought about him or his architecture, its model or philosophy, at any particular point in time?

It is and has been my thought that if you weren't trying to protect against all that then why is it you keep telling me I'm bashing him which I do not believe I am doing at all. CBM to me, is one of the most interesting figures in American architecture and both he and his ideas were definitely not without a pretty good dose of controversy. That is what I want to analyze on here because I think it is truly significant to the history of this stuff over here.

So if that's not what you're doing on here then just let me see you stop posting on here that I'm bashing him and I'll drop the entire idea that you are trying to protect him from something.

Agreed?  




"...by the way Tom, I'm leaving this thread as I see you are changing the nature of your posts as you go.

Another cowardly tactic."



Very good; that would seem to be the wisest thing for you to do at this point.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

TEP
That is not exactly what he said. He said he did not think the term 'golf architecture' can be found in the records prior to 1901 when he developed the idea of copying or emulating certain aspects of famous holes. He goes on to compare golf architecture to art and architecture, and says his idea of emulating well known examples (which is common other creative disciplines and the formalized studies of other creative disciplines) was the birth of golf architecture. He equates the study of famous holes and features of holes with the birth of golf architecture as discipline on par with the other well established creative disciplines.

I would take exception with his timeline (among other things) because I know Willie Park borrowed heavily from Musselburgh when he designed Huntercombe.

Tom:

So, did CBM equate the study of famous holes and replication of them as the birth of GCA? Is CBM belittling the efforts of those that were designing courses before him?

Dónal.

 

[JC Jones]

Eventually, the most important subject of all should also be discussed-----why did some of the more significant architects in America beginning in the teens decide to vocally, philosophically and actually move away from Macdonald's template or classical GB architecture model and philosophy and even begin to criticize the very idea of it?

I'm not sure this is as monumental as one would think.

Firstly, eventually all artistic and architectural styles/philosophies get segmented and criticized.  This is largely because there is no single correct style/philosophy.  I don't see it as an indictment against renaissance period art that it eventually fell out of favor and that the impressionists did something completely different and probably denounced other styles/philosophies that they weren't on board with.  Similarly, the post CBM crowd had a different style/philosophy and they, obviously, felt it more valid.

Why did they feel that way?  Well, at least in part, to justify their philosophy.  It isn't enough to rest simply on why you are right, but also show why others are wrong.  It is human nature.  In addition, iconoclasm is typical among those who are differing from what they perceive to be the norm.  Building on that, you also have arrogance that can fuel pioneerism because they want to be different and known for being different.

So, without getting too deep, I'm not sure what the post-CBM crowd said regarding CBM or his style has any bearing on the merits of CBM and what he did because their behavior is natural and expected.

[Mac Plumart]

JC...that was really good.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  I will be pondering this for a little while and hopefully remembering it for quite some time.

[TEPaul]

"So, did CBM equate the study of famous holes and replication of them as the birth of GCA?"

Donal:

From all the evidence we have before us these days it sort of looks that way, don't you think?



"Is CBM belittling the efforts of those that were designing courses before him?"


I think that's a pretty hard question to answer properly and even if one tries hard and astutely to answer it, one would think it is still pretty speculative.

I think he was probably in some ways belittling what came before his NGLA but the thing that has really gotten my attention in recent years is that is appears he may've been really belittling others who came after his NGLA and long after it as well.

One thing I do know, however, and I can produce evidence of it, is that eventually Macdonald surely did seem to become pretty disallusioned by what he saw happening in America with both golf and apparently with architecture too. To those who knew him he could be and occasionally was extremely critical of others even all others, particularly in the early 1920s. It's hard to say if he just didn't appreciate the way things were going with architecture and architects or if it was something else entirely to do with him or maybe some combination of both.

There is no question at all that CBM was a complex, massively opinionated, and apparently unpredicatable man which made things doubly difficult sometimes for others because he really did have stature over here in most all things to do with golf, at least for a certain amount of time. At least he sure did have some personal capital for a certain amount of time but it seems like he either wasted it for some reason or just refused to use it after a time for whatever the hell his reasons were. I feel that Macdonald purposefully tried to essentially depart from the scene a whole lot earlier than most people think he did----and I believe the reasons are important to know or at least try to explore. I'm talking perhaps 15-20 years before he died with the exception of some select projects that had to do with some men that obviously interested him for other reasons than just golf.

Don't forget, CBM was never a professional architect----he very much had another day job altogether and considering what it was might help explain why he tried to cultivate the types of people we can document he certainly did try to cultivate and did cultivate. Who-all they were is pretty predictable and very interesting because of that----at least it is to me.

[TEPaul]

"Firstly, eventually all artistic and architectural styles/philosophies get segmented and criticized.  This is largely because there is no single correct style/philosophy."


JC:

PRECISELY!!

I think you just nailed it and the whole subject and question of Macdonald and the National School type and style or even model.

But I think it is important to explore the reasons for that, certainly including any reasons those of his contemporaries gave back then. To me this is the entire tapestry of the evolving history of American architecture and it is fascinating in its evolution.

I will not beat around the bush at all here with one of the primary reasons I raise this subject and want to discuss it. It has nothing to do with me wanting to bash Macdonald or his architecture or its style, type or model; it pretty much has to do with the fact that I feel some on here and perhaps elsewhere have gone pretty far overboard with the history and evolution of American architecture in trying to suggest that C.B. Macdonald and his type and style and model for golf course architecture is essentially the one and only Rosetta Stone or fundamental principle for golf course architecture.

I have always felt an attempt to do that or make it look like that is an inaccurate and unfactual history of American Architecture and frankly historical revisionism to the detriment of understanding the truth of it all!


And if that is all not complicated enough----I think we have another and perhaps even more important aspect or perhaps phenomenon to consider if one looks at all this in its entirety spanning more than a century----and by that I mean CBM and his type and style CAME BACK AGAIN bigtime in popularity after many many decades in the architectural wilderness, so to speak. Why that happened as it did or as much as it did even considered that the architecture of others from back then did as well, needs to be looked at.

That last part needs a lot of explanation but I think I can help because I really did grow up around so much of it (CBM/Raynor) over half a century ago, and I remember!

[TEPaul]

JC:

When I first read your #18 I only read as far as I quoted. But I just read the rest of it and it is really good. It brings up some other things I think are truly fascinating in this kind of thing we know as golf architecture, such as-----why do we cycle as we have and as we tend to? Who does it more than others and why and how?

To me those questions are appropriate if we start here and now and try to look backwards to say the turn of the last century and on but if we want to look at it from Macdonald's perspective back then as he must have been looking forward from around the first decade of the 20th century it is a whole different deal, for sure. And in the context of discussing a man such as Macdonald back then and what his hopes and dreams as well as his disappointments might have been----I believe that is another subject that can be incredibly revealing and elucidating to so many of us. And that is not to even mention a potential bump along the road of our historical analyses known as what we have come to call "PC" or political correctness! 

[DMoriarty]

So, did CBM equate the study of famous holes and replication of them as the birth of GCA? Is CBM belittling the efforts of those that were designing courses before him?

Dónal.

Dónal,

1. CBM didn't replicate any holes so far as I am aware.  He tried to replicate parts of a few holes but even on these holes he intentionally made significant changes which he thought to be improvements.

2. In the passage, was CBM "belittling" the efforts of those who were designing courses before him?  That seems much more of a subjective projection than an actual attempt to understand what he might have meant.

3.  In the main quote in question, CBM was writing about undertaking the tangible project in 1901 so we must consider the quote as applying to that time frame-- 1901 and before.

4.  In 1901 the course widely considered the best course in the US was Chicago Golf Club, designed by Macdonald himself.   Ontwensia was another top course, and again CBM had a hand in its creation as did his close friend H.J.Whigham.   Emmet, another good friend of CBM's, had been deeply involved in the newly created Garden City.   So if he was "belittling" anyone, he was including himself, his close friends, and the clubs with with he was most closely associated.  Further, he certainly wasn't "belittling" the designs of the great golf holes to which he looked for inspiration and ideas.  

5.  That being said, there is no doubt that CBM was highly critical of most of the golf courses in America at the time and rightfully so.   But he isn't really being critical this quote, I don' think.  I think that all he is doing in this quote is is pointing out that he was unaware of anyone else (in America at least) who was taking a such a decidedly comprehensive and architectural approach to the discipline:  the close and careful study of the great courses and golf holes; the distillation and determination of the fundamental concepts which made them great, and the wholesale application of these concepts to produce, from scratch, a golf course entirely based upon the basic principles of sound architecture.[/i]    

5.  Others may have been considering or even discussing some of these things by 1901 (in fact CBM was, as was HJ Whigham), and a few might have begun to tangibly head in this direction (CBM and HJW included,) but so far as I know no one else in the US had yet taken this "architectural approach" to designing and creating an entire "architectural" golf course from scratch.   Do you know of anyone else in the U.S. who had set out to accomplish this by 1901?  I don't.   Had anyone in the world at this point?   I don't know.

6.  Instead of assuming he was puffing or lying, why not take him at his word?   What if he was actually unaware of anyone else who had set out to plan and build an entire golf course where every hole was based on sound architectural principles and on fundamental concepts distilled from the great holes?  Would he then still be belittling those who came before?   If so how so?  

7.  Probably because of the years and nastiness and caricature of CBM and his friends (SR, HJW, DE) on this discussion board, it seems people tend to simply assume that everything CBM wrote was inaccurate, loaded, and unfairly insulting to the rest of the world, even though the texts rarely if ever support such a conclusion.  So many lies, misrepresentations, and insulting descriptions have been written about the man that it is apparently impossible for many to actually consider his words with an open mind.   Unfortunately, we seem to be heading in that direction here.

[TEPaul]

"2. In the passage, was CBM "belittling" the efforts of those who were designing courses before him?  That seems much more of a subjective projection than an actual attempt to understand what he might have meant.


3.  In the main quote in question, CBM was writing about undertaking the tangible project in 1901 so we must consider the quote as applying to that time frame-- 1901 and before."




Uhh, can anyone tell me what quote exactly is being referred to or understood in #2 and #3 to be 'the main quote in question?'"

Also, early on (pre-NLGA), Myopia was considered to be one of the best few courses in America along with Chicago GC and GCGC (and as mentioned above Onwentsia) and depending on who was being asked Ekwanok was sometimes included.